The Republican congressional aide who became the center of a post-Thanksgiving tsunami of criticism for using Facebook to advise President Obama’s daughters to “dress like you deserve respect” has been forced to resign.
According to the Washington Post, Elizabeth Lauten, communications director for Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher, R-Tennessee, stepped down Monday four days after her Facebook posting criticizing the first daughters went viral – and stirred up a liberal backlash that enlivened the moribund holiday weekend inside the Beltway.
In the posting, Lauten criticized Mahlia and Sasha Obama for appearing petulant and bored during their father’s ceremony Wednesday pardoning two Thanksgiving turkeys in a White House tradition.
She also didn’t like the way the girls, ages 13 and 16, were dressed for the occasion.
Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play. Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department. Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And certainly don’t make faces during televised public events.
Pretty mild stuff all around, really. And if you consider that the turkey pardon was a staged event, meaning someone (presumably Michelle O. herself) had final say over what the girls were wearing and final responsibility, really, to at least remind them to try to act like adults, Lauten’s words should have found a target far more responsible than two teenage girls.
But for all that, asking two teenagers to “try showing a little class” was enough to get the libs howling for blood, and Lauten apologized as early as Friday, saying she had “quickly judged the two young ladies in a way I never would have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager.”
But that didn’t satisfy the critics. In reporting Lauten’s apology, the lefty Huffington Post called her Facebook posting a “rant” (pot, meet kettle).
MSNBC, the paragon of broadcasting decorum, put together a lengthy list of supposed slights against the Obama girls that were really mainly conservatives either criticizing her father or using the subject as an example of the Obama-leaning tilt of the establishment media.
The criticism, of course, completely ignored the occasionally vicious attacks against the daughters of President Bush while he was in office, complete with slams against the Bush twins — then under-age — for occasionally tasting forbidden alcohol.
Remembering that, conservatives were quick to compare the treatment meted out to Lauten with libs who criticized the Bush girls. Republican National Committee Communications Director pointed out the disparity in a series of tweets ending with: “In over 20 years in politics I have never seen 1 of the countless inappropriate comments by Democrats ever covered to a [fraction] of this.”
Others noted the fascination the media has with an alleged Obama daughter bash compared to its turning a blind eye to real scandals fostered in the Obama administration.
By this time tomorrow, more Americans will have heard the name Elizabeth Lauten than Johnathan Gruber. — Jerome Hudson (@JeromeEHudson) December 1, 2014
Or maybe Lois Lerner?
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